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Overview
This is a blue-green coloured glass marble. It has a centre seam running round the circumference.
Marbles
A marble is a small spherical toy that can be made from a variety of hard materials. Marbles have been mentioned in Roman literature and found in Egypt. They are used for a variety of children's games.
A bottley
This marble is thought to have been a 'bottley', which were marbles saved from soft drink bottles. Designed in 1872 by Hiram Codd, Codd-neck bottles had a glass marble and a rubber washer in the neck. They were filled upside down and the pressure of carbonation made the glass marble press against the washer and seal the bottle. Children would have smashed the bottle to retrieve the marble inside.
This marble is typical of the type of toy used by children in colonial New Zealand and is thought to have been played with by children of the Randell family, who settled in Wellington in 1867. It was part of a collection of objects found underneath the Randell family cottage when it was renovated in the 1990s.
The Randell Cottage
The Randell Cottage is situated at 14 St Mary Street in the suburb of Thorndon in Wellington. It was built by William Randell in 1867 for his family, who moved into the four room cottage that year with seven children. By 1877 there were 10 children! William added two more rooms in 1874. He died in 1880 leaving his wife, Sarah, with five children aged 15 and under. Sarah and the family were supported by three of the elder children until she moved in with her daughter Emily in the suburb of Karori.
Acquisition
In 1994, Beverley Randell, great granddaughter of William and Sarah, purchased the cottage with the help of her own family. They refurbished it, keeping much to the original floor plan and furnishings. New foundations had to be laid and, during the digging, many objects were unearthed. As there was no formal rubbish collection in the 1870s, many hard, sharp, and unwanted objects were tossed beneath the house. Others most likely found their way down through cracks in the floorboards.
Beverley Randell donated the collection of finds to Te Papa in 2006. The objects provide a rare glimpse into the everyday lives of New Zealand's early European settler families.